120216

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WOD 120216:

Rest day.

This is the sound of me punching myself in the fucking face (it’s loud, trust me).

Why am I punching myself in the face?

Because less than a week after I wrote this: 120208.

I watched this:

Go ahead, watch it again. I’ll wait…

Did that remind anyone else of this?

I don’t want to sound crazy, but someone deserves to be thanked for coming up with the idea for a “WOD” that ended with a seemingly sweet young lady being eviscerated by the front fender of a police car like she was coming across the middle against Patrick Willis.

Yes, I said someone should be thanked. Why? Because now THE ENTIRE WORLD thinks we’re complete fucking idiots (again). Congrats. Every person who tells his friend he wants to try “the sport of fitness” will say, “You mean that getting run over by a car workout—I’ll stick to the treadmill.” As if we didn’t have enough general douche-baggery, now we’ve got an EPIC FAIL that can be replayed for the next million years.

I know, I know, you were trying to be cool and edgy with that “WOD.” You saw the fat asses on the Biggest Loser do it and thought it’d be cool to see real athletes exercisers doing it. You probably even gave it a cool/edgy name like “Run Like you Stole Something” (I don’t know—I suck at puns). Here’s what you didn’t factor in the “It’s gonna be dope, dude—they’re pulling a cop car” equation…

When the 220# “California Bear,” Jason Khalipa, is pulling the rope that’s attached to the cop car, it’s gonna be hard for a 120# lady to keep up with his big ass. Khalipa don’t know pace; Khalipa know win (don’t know why I did the Tonto voice for Khalipa). It’s science or physics or just mufuckin’ common sense—If you TIE A HUMAN BEING TO A MOVING CAR something bad is probably gonna happen.

Look, you want to design an exciting WOD, then write the next “Amanda.” That WOD is the ESSENCE of the sport of fitness. Pulling a car around a track is about as good of a test of fitness as this:

Believe it or not, the car pull may not be as stupid as the final event from last weekend’s Garage Games One team event.

First, let me set the stage for you… Rich Froning, the fittest man alive, brought a team. Brandon Phillips was there with team 2Pood. There were enough high-level exercisers there to make a mini Games.

And do you want to know what they chose for the final event…?

Dodge Ball.

Stop going to these events. Stop trying to win $20 trophies.

I love this sport—please don’t let it be ruined.

68 responses to “120216”

    • It isn’t any better out here in So Cal. I recently went to a local competition known as the Next Level Invitational (iron will series) and came across this display of GPP- A fucking bean bag toss, used to test accuracy.
      [IMG]http://i.imgur.com/hWHQB.jpg[/IMG]

  3. fucking awesome that two of HQ’s LVL1
    coaches were a part of this douchbaggery (not sure maybe all 4) … why don’t people have enough fucking common sense to just walk away from stupid shit like this!

  9. Did that girl actually get hit in the face with a watermelon? I’m having trouble believing that. Pretty sure if you launched a water melon at someones head at that range they’d straight up be dead…

  10. One word. WOW. The level of Dumbarsery in that competition is EPIC. Cheers for my Facebook status though.

    One question, over here in OZ we seem to program some very decent local comp WODs. What is wrong with some of the American competition organisers that think this is a test of fitness??

    And Dodgeball???? ARE YOU SERIOUS?

  11. HAHA! The Amazing Race watermelon launch is my all-time favorite. I use it to introduce Newton’s Laws to my 8th graders. I’m not the most conventional science teacher–or so some would say. I also use Tosh.0’s “Tase Across America” Segment to supplement our lesson on electric circuits: http://bit.ly/eqIoE6.

  12. So true, when I saw that vid I thought about your previous post, when will the edgy douche-bagery stop, it’s getting rediculous!

  13. Thank you for challenging our culture. A coach who trains his CrossFit athletes as such and who expects CrossFit to regard itself as a group of athletes not assholes, is rather refreshing. I appreciate that you are bought in but remaining levelheaded. Thank you for providing leadership to our community

  14. The dumbest thing about that car-pull is, that Khalipa and Barber went out again to pull that car alone around the track to finish the event! You can watch the video on http://www.sicfit.com.

    BTW one of the organizers of that throwdown was Blair Morisson. So a lot of eliteness involved at that event.

    Dodgeball? Not even saying something about that.

  18. ill stick to sled dragging…you know that peice of gear that was designed for people to drag.
    Their bodies couldnt have possibly responded the same while dragging something they were supposed to drag.

    HQ, I want my $1000 back

    • Love you, Pat, but don’t make that jump. You better believe HQ had NOTHING to do with programming that car pull. That was a local event. Have you ever seen this on .com:

      WOD 120217:

      1 round for time:

      Tie female to 5000# car.
      Tie “California Bear” to car.
      Run over female.

      Post times to comments.

      • Hey! I can have a Crossfit workout named after me, “Cheryl” hahahha.

        Thanks for posting this article. I was the one who attacked the car and am definitely going to stick with my trusty prowlers and sleds.

      • I’m not holding the wod against HQ. I’m just tired of the weekend mass production of the next great programmers

      • Just wanted to make sure you guys know that the above Pat B was not me. I thought that event was hilarious.

        See ya soon at the outlaw open Rudy.

  21. I think you were actually using the “Hulk Smash!” voice for Khalipa but had too many words to say so it ended up sounding like Tonto.

  24. As a witness of that event, at no point did the organizers instruct athletes to tie themselves to the rope. Athletes made that decision themselves such that they wouldn’t have to worry about grip. Had they not tied the rope around their waists, this would have never happened (she could have easily let go of the rope once it became tangled). I think a bit of responsibility for this lies with the athletes themselves, not the organizers. Say what you want about the car event, but the rest of the programming in my opinion provided quality tests of fitness in a non-douchebaggy way like many other competitions.

      • Just saying. They made a choice to tie the ropes around their waist (and, to be fair, the organizers had the choice to tell them not to tie the ropes around their waist, which they didn’t do (and to be even fairer, being that I was there, I could have said something, but I didn’t, so you could blame me)).

      • Yeah, we’re all well aware that a bunch of fucking idiots were at this event, top to bottom. The video makes this much clear.

    • This now brings us into the question of who is to blame when people get hurt:

      Is it the exerciser? YES. Are you telling me that you honestly think it is a good idea to tie yourself to a car? No, of course it isn’t, but it is worth the assumed risk to get a faster time?

      Is it the organizer? YES. Everyone wants to program bigger and badder events so that people will talk about them. Well with bigger events comes bigger risk. Duh.

      Anyway, all you mufuckas want attention as much as the corner twunt so don’t pretend like you wouldn’t be tickled pink if a video of you went viral. You’d probably pretend like you didn’t like it in hopes that even MORE people would pay attention to you.

      • tom k, i’m not surprised that the only comment you’ve left in about 2 weeks is a response to me. should i be flattered?

        however HK, i really think the bigger issue here is that there was a car drag to begin with. it’s obviously not smart that they tied themselves to a car, but isn’t that why there shouldn’t be a car drag to begin with?

      • Ha, I wouldn’t be flattered. That would obviously give him the attention he wants when he comes around here and randomly picks a target to assault.

    • The organizers have a large role in athlete safety. But your right, athletes have no responsibility for themselves…

  26. Great post brother, keep em coming and athletes I mean exercisers, quit going to these things! I love this sport and I’m tired of having to defend it every time another one of theses videos pops up. Our sport is more than legitimate in and of itself. There’s no need to try to come up with these bullshit gimmicks. Dodgeball!? Fuck.

    • Just so yall know.. I’m an IT geek and the site that Ben listed set off my filters at work. Don’t go to it. It tries to do some kind of browser hijack.

  28. I’m glad I read your write up on this event.

    I’m happy that more and more people are trying out crossfit or circuit training as their regimen instead of two hours on the elliptical. When I first started crossfit, I thought I automatically knew how to do the movements correctly. I also thought I was smart enough to program for myself.

    Here I am three years later and looking back, I didn’t know shit. I still only know the tip of the iceberg when it comes to programming. Overtime, I have done workout from mainsite that I wish I hadn’t (400m walking lunge for time.) Holy fuck, I even tried Sealfit for awhile, what a bunch of jackasses over there. I apologize for my bluntness.

    I have been seeing the kool-aid drinkers get more and more over zealous and believe anything their Lvl 1 trainer tells them, but this ProAnox event proves to me that Glassmans “no regulation” approach to his business baby has failed him.

    I 100% agree with your statement “design an exciting WOD, then write the next “Amanda.” That WOD is the ESSENCE of the sport of fitness.” I started crossfit with the girls and some hero WODs with pretty standard movements and loved it. Jumping out a a plane without a parachute for time is not going to make me a better person, athlete, or exerciser. I will never participate in some affiliates outlandish idea of a fitness competition because of what they have evolved into over the years.

    • Some people blame HQ for being too controlling, now you’re blaming them for being not controlling enough. Let’s get our cause/effect analysis in check here. This has nothing to do with HQ.

      The truth: there’s just something about CrossFit that brings out the idiot attention whore in people.

  29. After that build-up I was expecting worse…and I got it when I saw that ‘sledgehammer strike’ video. I’ll now join you in the following:

    21-15-9 for time:
    Punching myself in the fucking face

    Now that’s program design

  30. 21,15,9:
    Punching myself in the face.

    That’s douchebaggery. Why do cross fitters feel the need to throw rep scheme before every stupid action that pops in their head. Hear that garbage too often in cheesy gym conversation

  31. I so have to throw down on this discussion. As one of the (PROUD to say it) organizers of the Garage Games event, and yes, one who supported the dodge ball. I will defend this aggressively for two reasons.

    1. This is NOT the test of the fittest on earth, and I would be a dumb-ass if i thought that it was my place to do so. This is a test of fitness, athleticism, and desire to have some frickin fun. We have had some awesome competitions, and this was yet another. Everyone who participated in dodge ball, loved it. When was the last time your heart was pounding out of your chest with excitement because you just narrowly escaped getting hit in the face?

    2. The rest of the day, the other four events, tested fitness in ways that you would all approve. Yeah, we left out knitting for time, and blind-folded croquet, and kept in the rowing with thrusters, SDLHP, DL and double unders. We made them carry atlas stones, and pull sleds, and all the fun traditional CF activities. So we still figured out who was fit.

    All kidding aside, one thing that stood out watching the top teams climb the rungs of the dodgeball tourney… people who are fit, are generally the most athletic too. As the same people we would expect to perform well in the entire event, continued to perform there. I saw a top team move like they were in the Matrix, spinning wildly through the air dodging two balls at once to twist land and rifle a ball to take out an opponent. You sissy’s making fun of dodgeball probably have lost your athleticism and feel a bit threatened by the idea of actually having to move.

    If I am wrong, well… I doubt i am.

    • Haha…Outlaw= non athletic, no dodgeball competeing, sissies.
      I can see where you are coming from. there is def room in crossfit for fun and i can understand your first two points. unfortunately you ended your post by making yourelf sound like a fucking dumbass.

  32. Everyone has an opinion. I suppose it comes down to the competitor, if they allow themselves to do something that involves risk. Getting ran over by a police cruiser or not using your legs on a rope climb and falling 20 some odd feet.

  33. Dodgeball is widely regarded as fun. These local events are generally geared towards having fun, and that is why dodgeball was the final event.

    If you are opposed to fun, then you are a cunt.

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